


The Devil You Know

by FalseConfidence



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Driving, Fluff and Crack, M/M, Nile Freeman is the only one with a brain cell, The immortal family are the worst passengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FalseConfidence/pseuds/FalseConfidence
Summary: In which Nile drives the getaway car for the first time and quickly learns that there's a reason why everyone in this family drinks.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Everyone
Comments: 67
Kudos: 610





	The Devil You Know

Nile supposes that when you’ve come into the twenty-first century mostly reliant on one person to be your on the ground tech guy then it makes sense that they’d stumble somewhere down the line once he’s banished.

It’s the first time she’s seen Joe verbally admit he misses Booker.

Admittedly it’s riddled with expletives as they make their escape out of a complex with the intel that they require, but having also tripped an alarm somewhere along the lines while Nile had frantically shut down the security with a virus of brazen simplicity as everything around them became bathed in shades of red.

They race through the woods once outside, bullets pinging past Nile’s ear close enough she thinks she might end up losing one when they finally skid out of a dense patch of trees and their getaway car is precisely where Copley said it’d be.

“What the fuck is that?” Joe shouts just as a lucky shot clips him in the shoulder as he dives to put himself between Andy and one of their pursuers.

It’s the only shot they get in as Nicky spins and unloads half a clip at seemingly random until Nile hears the corresponding _thump_ of bodies falling to the ground.

The car is a five door disappointment with all of the scrapes, dents and rust to indicate the token of its previous owners care.

“I don’t give a shit, get in.” Andy barks back, and barely has time to twist mid-stride, release the safety catch at her belt, withdraw a small hatchet axe and send it twirling through the air at one of the men heading to cut them off. “We’re not here to kill everyone, you know that.”

And then she proceeds to do precisely that.

Nile doesn’t understand this family sometimes.

“We need to go before the backup arrives.” Joe jogs over, and as if he summoned it, the distant blare of a secondary alarm echoes around them, distractedly peering over his shoulder where Nicky materialises a second later.

Maybe that’s why Nile gets to the driver’s side first, why Andy who usually calls dibs is diving into the backseat as the mercenaries tracking them down find their colleagues and respond with a vengeance, blindly shooting through the trees as if by luck they’ll make contact.

Nile paws at the keys under the seat in their usual space and wastes no time in getting them the hell out of dodge before they end up giving Copley an aneurysm with the clean up job he’ll have to perform.

“Paid killers are starting to get sloppy.” Andy laments as she stretches out.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Joe says, leaning forward to carefully run his fingers over the tear in Nicky’s shirt, prodding the flesh underneath until he’s satisfied it’s healed. Nothing’s changed.

Nicky, for his part, manages to reach back and take Joe’s hand without it looking awkward as his torso contorts.

“For us it’s fine, but you’d think they’d try and at least be worth half the price they’re charging for.”

“Are you really criticising the pay packet of the people that work for human traffickers?” Nile says while turning the car off of the dirt track and onto a small back road, trying not to swear when it feels like the car’s vibrating hard enough her teeth are going to rattle.

Blending in Nile's ass. Copley’s getting an earful for this bullshit.

“Say what you like Nile, but at least when I was hired to protect a caravan then I did it with conviction.”

“Yes, you’re so noble.” Nile rolls her eyes and leaves her to discuss the semantics of the fine art of killing with Joe.

They’re halfway back to the safe-house when Nile realises she’s being watched. Not in the creepy way, nor in a way that makes her peer over her shoulder in apprehension of a bullet and her feet treading lightly in fear of a mortar.

No, the person staring is sitting beside her, brows furrowed, free hand fiddling under the dash, looking at the car manual there and surreptitiously glancing at her as if she hasn’t spent the last six months learning all of her new family’s little quirks.

“You alright, Nicky?”

Joe’s arm tenses minutely, tendons and sinew stark under her scrutiny, and Nile thinks, _yeah, I know all of your tells by now._

“I’m fine thank you, Nile.”

Which is a blatant lie.

Andy makes a quiet noise, like a suppressed laugh.

By now Nile has also learnt that with certain things, until any of them are ready to tell her, there’s no point in needling. So, she ignores Nicky as he fusses about, fiddles with the old radio, puts his window up and down about _five fucking times_ , and seems determined to test the fine nerves of Nile’s patience.

She makes it about thirty seconds before she starts to become open to the possibility of throttling the man.

“You haven’t adjusted your mirrors since we set off.” He says mildly while looking out of the window. Joe and Andy are now talking in Russian in the backseats and seemingly oblivious to anything happening around them.

Aside from the fact that if they both had a pair of dogs ears they’d be perking up right now.

“Excuse me for not stopping to do my pre-drive checks while we were getting shot at.” She says, thinks that his conversation filler is a solitary one.

Then, five minutes later.

“You should have indicated already.”

While she’s pulling onto the highway.

Nile starts to get this sneaking suspicion that Joe might have dived into the backseat on purpose earlier, and decides to look into the possibility of getting her own getaway car next time.

“We’re fine.”

Maybe she can roll out of the car without braining herself?

Goes so far as to peer out of the window in anticipation and thinks _, yeah, I can make that._

“We’re also going under the speed limit.”

As if Nile has let her foot off of the gas for a second. “No, we’re not.”

Nicky has the nerve to peer over her shoulder at the speedometer.

“Boy, you did _not_ just do that.” Nile glances at him and meets unrepentant blue eyes before she looks in the mirror to check if anyone else is witness to the audacious act.

Andy grins the sort of grin that indicates someone who’s been on the receiving end of this sort of bullshit and is quietly revelling in someone else being on in the line of fire for a while.

“Annoying when someone fusses over you, isn’t it?”

“There’s a difference between having a limit of one bottle of vodka a night while you have a mortal body to this.” Nile scowls.

“I have been driving since the first car was invented.” Nicky says primly. “I don’t see what’s wrong with dispensing a little advice.”

“And I’ve driven a M1151 Enhanced Armament Carrier while under fire in Afghanistan.” She counters. “Can _you_ say that you’ve ever done that?”

Nicky’s lips thin and she thinks that he might be offended before she realises that he’s doing his best not to laugh at her indignation.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Nile accepts his then apologetic smile with her own benevolent one.

“Just be grateful that you weren’t there when they used to take a drive, Nile.” Andy says darkly with a look that suggests of someone that’s seen some things. “You want to see how these two used to dress up in the eighteen-hundreds.”

“He looked incredibly dashing with his driving gloves on.” Joe stares at the back of Nicky’s head starry-eyed.

Nile can’t help but laugh. “You’re joking?”

“Don’t get him started on Nicky’s driving attire, Nile.” Andy groans. “It never ends.”

“If you say that he had an ascot then both of you are walking.” She threatens emptily.

“No, Joe was always the one partial to a tie.” Nicky smirks and Nile gives it about five seconds before he disturbs her and so begins to prepare.

Checks the mirrors to find the highway still empty.

“Andy, do you have your seat belt on?”

“Of course, I do,” Andy catches on and grins as she pulls it over and fastens it with a click, “what sort of an idiot wouldn’t secure themselves in a moving vehicle?”

So when Nicky can’t help himself…

“How else would I have been able to pull him down to-“

Nile slams the breaks on hard enough Nicky almost smacks into the windshield and Joe crashes into the back of him with a startled yelp.

“That, Andy,” Nile says as she pulls forward again, “is how we execute an emergency stop in a driving test.”

“Perfect, I would have passed you immediately.”

Joe looks less inclined when Nile glances at him, and if it weren’t that she’s too busy being smug as they continue on, judging the distance left and wondering what sort of fuckery Nicky is planning to mess with her next, then Nile might have seen the truck coming up from behind first.

It isn’t as if they're going to be the fastest thing out there in this rust bucket, with the whole undercover vibe Copley thinks is in fashion these days, so when the truck pulls closer than safety and manners dictate Nicky is the first to react with a long drawn out sigh.

“I hate people.” Andy says.

Nile, who changes lanes because she hasn’t got the patience for this shit, agrees. “Me too.”

When the driver blasts past, and then doesn’t go any further than a length or two in front it’s infuriating even before the guy makes the sort of obscene gesture that Nile has seen countless times in her life.

“Was that meant to be to me or you?” She asks Nicky.

He cocks his head in consideration, pupils narrowing. “I believe given his predilection towards the opposite sex it would be safe to say it isn’t me.”

Nile catches one of the bumper stickers littered over the rear end of the truck and comes to the same conclusion.

“I don’t know which of us should be more offended.” She laughs, because if there’s one thing she’s learnt is that there’s little to be gained from entertaining racist homophobes.

They might have had some peace if Andy hadn’t clocked the bumper just after.

“Draw alongside our delightful company will you?” Andy, leans forward and taps her shoulder, smiling sweetly.

_Smiling sweetly._

Nile looks in the rear-view mirror and gives her the sternest look she can. “Whatever you’re thinking… _Don’t.”_

“Nile, I’m the oldest person in this car, don’t make me pull rank.”

If she had a better temperament, Nile thinks she would be inclined to ignore her, however Andy is the sort of person that you ignore at your own peril and she’s not that stupid.

She checks the mirrors yet again to ensure that, yes, they are still alone on this stretch of highway, assholes aside, speeding up and then she tries to duck her face because her family are a bunch of idiots.

“Fantastic, thank you.”

Nicky twists subtly at her side, and there’s a shuffling sound before a low roar as the back window winds down as fast as Andy can crank the little handle.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

Joe hooks a hand in Andy’s belt and before Nile can do something responsible like pull over or just take them off the verge and into the ditch, Andy all but flings herself out of the window, anchored by Joe’s firm grip as he too leans from the waist out, and the immortal stretches to her fullest, palming what looks suspiciously like one of Nicky’s blades and stabs it into the tire of the assholes truck.

“Was that really necessary?” Nile asks tiredly, looking in the rear-view mirror as the truck veers wildly, horn blaring before coming to a stop, the driver scrambling to get out when she loses sight of him in the gentle curve of the road. “Fuckin’ maniacs.”

Andy clambers in with Joe’s help and leans forward to hand Nicky back one of his knives.

“I thought you were the mature one.” She gripes as the trio laugh. “What happened to lowkey, huh?”

“If it is any consolation, he had a gun.” Nicky says.

Nile frowns. “How’d you know that?”

“He was scrambling to grab it and wave it out of the window at us.”

From his satisfied expression, Nile suspects he’s perfectly content with what's just happened.

“You should count your blessings, Nile.” Joe swipes a hand over his face, eyes shining with mirth.

“Oh, enlighten me?”

“You want to be in the car when someone cuts me off.”

“Are you telling me you get road rage?” Nile can’t keep the disbelief out of her tone.

“No,” Andy pushes her hair back where it’s swept loose from hanging out of a fucking window at going on a hundred down the highway, “he’s saying that Nicky turns psychotic.”

Nile opens her mouth to argue, glances at the serene smile directed her way by the sniper and decides that she will, in fact, be splurging out on her own vehicle next time.

Three weeks later Nile learns first hand just how low Nicky's tolerance is as Joe's passenger when she's clinging to his jeans, Andy howling with laughter, as she tries to stop him from climbing onto the roof and launching across onto the people carrier whose driver just flipped his husband off.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is meant to be other than a ridiculous idea that came to me at 3 in the morning, so yeah, thanks for reading xD


End file.
